Are You a Harvest Festival-Esque Sort of Person?

We live in a decidely festival-crazed town.

Throw a dart at your calendar and it likely will fall on a day that Main Street is closed to vehicle traffic. (Special Event in Progress, says the saw-horse sign at the end of Hopyard, where all ye who try to travel past do so at the risk of getting stuck in a traffic jam with no parking spot in sight for miles).

Now, don't get me wrong. It is exactly our town's ye old festival atmosphere that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about living here and the fact that our city is so supportive of all the businesses and artists from cities in California I've never heard of that enjoy the marketing and sales opportunities from the festival scene.

But after a few years of going to all these festivals, I'm getting a little of that jaded seen-one-festival-seen-'em-all feeling.

It's like there must be some sort of Festival in a Box organization somewhere that just packs up a container full of the same little granny types in frilly aprons selling knitted baby booties and sends them off to be at your hometown festival.

Take last weekend's Harvest Festival as an example. 

You had your caramel apples weighing approximately 2 pounds with enough chocolate and candy covering them to completely and totally negate any possible positive health benefits of eating the apple buried way way beneath the Oreos and Snickers bar bits. You had your personalized Christmas ornaments. And you had your animal-print shirts that look like the animal's mouth is opening and closing when you put your arms together and flap them.

I learned that my friend really, really hates those shirts. I resisted buying the apples, which I feared would send my family into an irreversible sugar coma, and I realized that walking around for hours past craft booths makes me really, really thirsty for some strange reason.

But all was not lost. When I came upon the potpourri, smelling of orange and cloves and cinnamon, all bitterness left my mean festival-hating heart. One sniff and he had me. I left happily cradling a potpourri wreath and a bag of loose bits that's now in a bowl in my living room, filling my house with a scent that my 6-year-old absolutely hates.

Maybe there's something to these festivals after all. Now if I only had one of those apples.